Self-Employment in Britain: Recent Trends and Current Issues

This paper reviews trends in self-employment up to the 1980s and beyond, and looks at the composition and characteristics of the self-employed workforce. It examines the causes of the current rise in self-employment - in particular employers' strategy of transferring jobs and functions from their `core' workforce of full-time permanent employees to a `peripheral' workforce which includes self-employed labour-only subcontractors as well as part-time workers and people with limited duration contracts of employment. It looks at the recent inflow to self-employment - in particular the importance of involuntary entrants. It examines the ideology of self-employment, and whether it differs substantively from the work orientations of employees. Problems of definition and measurement are summarised. The review concludes with pointers for further research - both qualitative and quantitative.